Toyota - No 'knee-jerk' reaction

Howett: Hard time?

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Toyota motorsport president John Howett has warned that any "knee-jerk" reaction by Formula One to the global financial crisis will do the sport more harm than good.

Although attempts to cut costs have been high on the agenda for some time, with measures such as an engine development freeze and a testing limit already in place, events in recent weeks and days have brought a renewed sense of urgency.

FIA president Max Mosley said this week that the manufacturer-dominated sport faced serious problems and needed urgent cost-cutting measures in place for 2010.

Some of the manufacturer teams have budgets estimated to be in excess of $400 million a year at a time when many car companies are suffering falling sales and plummeting share prices.

Mosley is due to meet with representatives of F1's 10 teams after this month's Chinese Grand Prix in order to discuss the matter.

Danger

However, Howett has warned against rushing through measures, telling a press conference at the Japanese Grand Prix: "I think that the danger is that a knee-jerk reaction could be catastrophic.

"In the end, if we have pressure, we will be told that's the budget and we will survive."

F1's commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone has suggested introducing a standard engine with a lifespan of half a season - a measure hardly likely to be accepted by manufacturer teams.

But Howett, whose team are reckoned to have the biggest budget of anyone in the paddock, again voiced caution and said the situation needed to be put into context.

"If you look at some of the figures released for the English Premier League in terms of teams' liquidity, the issues being faced by F1 teams are relatively minor," he added.

"Clearly, as a car manufacturer we will come under pressure because a number of markets are depressed.

"You can paint a very black picture or you can say there is a lot of upside here for Formula One and also for those well-managed Formula One teams and well-managed manufacturers.

"We will go through a hard time, I'm sure that we will all survive and we will probably come out with a strong sport."

In constrast, Honda F1 chief executive Nick Fry said that, while the sport needed to eliminate "wasted expenditure", some sort of immediate action was required.

"Whilst we shouldn't panic, we need to do things for the short term and that means next year," he said. "It's difficult to say otherwise when you have five thousand people laid off recently at a car factory in France.

"How can that manufacturer turn to its employees and say it's not going to do anything?

"There's a requirement for some of the Formula One teams to have instant action.

"You've only got to look at the accounts of some of the Formula One teams to see losses over the last couple of years and that needs to be addressed. The bank manager is not going to lend any more money."

Complex

Meanwhile, BMW-Sauber team boss Mario Theissen said that the complex nature of F1 meant that any regulation changes should be considered very carefully.

"We cannot come up with a low-cost engine within a few months," he said. "This would require huge additional expenses on the manufacturer side.

"We have to look at a certain period of time and at a combination of measures which can lead us to the final target which is do-able in the short term and then prepare for the long-term future in a commercially viable way."